Marine Electronics Forum - Marine/wx radar: newbie question

Let me preface this with I know nothing about marine/wx radar and looking for suggestions/opinions. Venturing further and further off shore (20+ miles now) in the Tampa area and have been thinking about radar mainly for weather initially. The thought of being that far off and having storms roll off the coast is unsettling at times. I have a new Raymarine e7d on boat now. Do I want a subscription weather radar such as Sirius/XM or a actual radar unit on the boat? Are boat mounted radar units (Raymarine HD units for example) typically used for wx that far away? thanks

I would go with the sirius wx first.

Sirius WX, period! Radar used for weather is a last resort and you really have to know what yoru doing, and even then it's not straight forward. WX is like watching the 5 oclock news with live WX radar displays.

You can call Sirius and suspend the Wx service for some number of months if you don't boat during the winter to save some $$$.

It's not an either-or decision; the information you can get from these sources barely overlaps.

Radar sees thru many obstructions to visibility like darkness and fog, and less well through heavy rain. It can't see over the horizon, thru hills or buildings. Things behind and below are hidden. What it shows on the screen makes more sense when you have spent several seasons with it.

It reveals solid objects like ships, other boats, and big buoys pretty well, but smaller objects are less visible, and two things close together look like one. Its great for picking out things that move, after you have learned not to confuse your own motion with others. It is dead accurate on distance but a little fuzzy about direction. It can see clouds, or at least rain up to the limits of its range, by adjusting its settings; remember to reset them.

Satellite Weather is a visual product drawn from a number of sources. It is meant to give you a very complete understanding of your local weather as well as your destination, or anywhere else the product covers, depending on the zoom level you choose. It predicts the track of thunderstorms and hurricanes, approximates the water temperature, show you wind direction and speed, waves, and more. It can be displaying information thats an hour old, or 5 minutes old depending on the source, but if it says you are going to run into rain, you can pretty much count on it.

Satellite weather provides nothing but weather: it doesn't know where you are, what else is near you, or what's happening the very minute you look at it.

But Wait! (JUST LIKE THE TV COMMERCIALS) There's more! All contemporary charting GPSs can also display DSC and AIS information. You should search this forum for more info on these, but AIS in particular provides a lot of good information about what your radar reports. But neither AIS or Satellite weather replace radar. Together, radar, AIS and Weather data give you a complete set of data, easily understood, to base your navigation decisions on.

You final decision will probably be based on money. I suggest you buy things in this order:

1. VHF radio, compass and charts. don't buy the least expensive. Be sure it can be connected to a GPS to do DSC. The Standard Horizon GX2100 or 2150 can also provide AIS to a GPS, or you can see other AIS targets on its little display.
2. GPS Chart plotter. From under $400 to more than a lot of money, don't blow all your boat bucks here. Be sure it includes detailed charts for your area, and that charts for longer trips won't break the bank. It should be ready to display AIS, DSC, and Weather data. If possible it should also be able to display radar, full screen, superimposed om the chart info. If it doesn't, you will have to replace it or buy a separate display when you get radar. Understand that your choice here may determine what radar you get.
3. XM or Siriius Weather receiver and subscription. Garmin uses XM, which I prefer. Raymarine and others use Sirius Weather, which can be cheaper to subscribe to. XM and Sirius are the same company but the weather products are a bit different. Sirius reports on a slightly wider slice of the world, XM offers higher resolution.
4. AIS receiver or transceiver.
There are a range of options, from just listening (and not getting all the data from other vessels) to listening and reporting your own position and data, which can be silenced with a switch. Let the budget decide.
5. RADAR is last only because it is the most expensive. As noted above, you may have already decided what brand when you bought your chart plotter. Buy the biggest you can. Research radar here on the hull truth while you are shopping, to understand the differences.

That completes your Navigation Suite; any thing else is icing, but can include a variety of fish finders, engine gages, cameras and entertainment stuff

Satellite Weather is a visual product drawn from a number of sources. It is meant to give you a very complete understanding of your local weather as well as your destination, or anywhere else the product covers, depending on the zoom level you choose. It predicts the track of thunderstorms and hurricanes, approximates the water temperature, show you wind direction and speed, waves, and more. It can be displaying information thats an hour old, or 5 minutes old depending on the source, but if it says you are going to run into rain, you can pretty much count on it.


Sandy, while most of your post is fine, I STRONGLY disagree with the highlighted sentence. I've used the XM weather for 5 seasons now, I have NEVER seen any into on it, that is 1 hour old(less the SST info). The weather data displayed is from 1 minute, to 20 minutes ago, and furthermore it tells you right on the display how old the data is. When you turn on the loop as shown in Tom's video's, it will show you 1 minute ago, then 3 minutes ago, then 5 minutes ago, then 8 minutes ago, then loop back to 1 minute ago. 1 minute ago is virtually LIVE data, and can be invaluable when tracking storms.

The OP eluded to using it to track storms, not navigating. And for tracking storms, Radar can't poke a stick at Sat WX.

We don't disagree, Birdman. SST data is slow, and the hurricane tracks come from computer models that take a while to crunch. Wind data is interpolated from many sources, and is, unfortunately, less accurate and much less current than a wet finger.
I did not want to set up any false expectations. I too would not go far without my XMWX. It has saved my bacon too many times for me to even think about the price.

We used to say "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait a minute." You may have to wait twenty minutes on the Chesapeake, but it can change just as dramatically here.

MY only real complaint is that the weather depiction area stops just where it would be REALLY great to have it: 200 miles offshore.

Heres a couple pictures I took awhile back

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb264/racemanfl/IMG-20120609-00117.jpg

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb264/racemanfl/IMG-20120609-00116.jpg

He might want to budget some money for an EPIRB or at least PLB if he's out twenty miles.

MY only real complaint is that the weather depiction area stops just where it would be REALLY great to have it: 200 miles offshore.

Me thinks if you on a boat big enough to do 200 miles off, you don't care about the weather! ;)

I am also outfitting a new boat. Chartplotter and VHF are installed. I am interested in XM satellite weather; can anyone give me an idea what it is going to cost for the electronics and subscription?

I am also outfitting a new boat. Chartplotter and VHF are installed. I am interested in XM satellite weather; can anyone give me an idea what it is going to cost for the electronics and subscription?

Depends on the plan type you need

XM
http://www.xmwxweather.com/marine/data-service-pricing.php

Sirius
http://www.siriusxm.com/marineweather

Birdman; Au Contraire mon bon ami; at 200 miles out, worrying about the weather comes ahead of worrying about whoever is at the helm when I'm trying to sleep, and just behind worrying about her finding my secret stash of peanut butter under the engine oil cans. Brrrrrr!
Graybeard: there are several different XMWX receivers for various Chart Plotters, and they don't mix and match. In fact I bought an out of date 545 instead of a 546 because I could get the weather reciever for it for $137 instead of three times that much. What Chart Plotter do you have?

I just put the lwx sirius on my boat, and have it set to let me know if a storm and lightning is 10 miles away..$30.00 a month is well worth the investment..

here is a pic I have on my work PC - We fished all day dodged storms to 19 miles out . never got wet ... I really liked it when I went night sword fishing 25 miles off at 1 AM. Nice to know if you are going to get wet on your drift / ride in.

I am also outfitting a new boat. Chartplotter and VHF are installed. I am interested in XM satellite weather; can anyone give me an idea what it is going to cost for the electronics and subscription?

I paid 500 for the year with music